There are federal clean water requirements that require water bodies such as lakes and rivers must meet strict minimal water quality specifications. To achieve these requirements, stormwater drainage pipes often require treatment before conveying stormwater into receiving water bodies. As a result, a wide variety of technologies have been developed to treat stormwater and improve the water quality. A common variety of stormwater treatment systems are hydrodynamic separators such as baffle type boxes and vortex systems. However, over time stormwater treatment systems often will fill with collected debris and will require service to remove the collected debris. The collected debris often include trash, leaves, grass clippings, sand and gravel, and the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,270,747 to Happel et al., which was co-invented by the inventor of the subject invention provided a storm water drain system with a nutrient separating basket having a rigid frame and a plurality of screen sides in the top and bottom and open front end attached to the interior wall edges. An inlet feed chute attached to the open front end allows for directing storm water and debris into the filter basket. The '747 patent has hinged lids on top of the basket that can swing open to access the inside of the basket. However, the swing doors are difficult to open in vaults where the roof of the vault is close in height to the top of the basket. Additionally, the doors are not able to be easily opened and closed if the access opening in the top of the vault is small.
Additionally, filter baskets are normally fixed in position within the vaults, and cannot be adjusted to any different heights without great difficulty. For example, the vaults can fill to different ground level waters and the baskets can be submerged to far below the water level or raised to far above the water level which would impair their operability to both take debris as well as be able to remove debris from the baskets.
In addition, the inventor's previous U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/292,431 to Happel et al. which is incorporated by reference, requires separate cranks that each have to be rotated to adjust a filter basket in a vault to different ground water levels. The labor and time to move the baskets in place can become both time consuming and expensive.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems with the prior art.